Top positive review

A very interesting book about the time Orwell spent living in Paris as a young struggling writer and the jobs he had to take to survive and pay his way.The latter part of the book is about his return to London and how he survived day to day living on the streets with tramps and vagabonds and relying on charity for meals and a bed for the night.This happened before he made his name as an author.I read this book in an afternoon, I just could not put it down, a very good read!!

Top critical review

In essence this is a docu-book of someone living in poverty and living with those in poverty coupled with some social commentary and suggestions for improvements. I never felt that he was in dire straits, rather giving the impression of carrying out an experiment than living the life. Despite that, it gave great insight to the live in poverty - one of enforced hunger, enforced idleness and one devoid of women/homelife with the option one of slave labour.

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

I didn't see this one coming, I know Orwell as an author of AnimalFarm and 1984, excellent but very serios reads. This is very different, but still makes you feel like you're learning a lot on the human condition subject. I have been to both Paris and London many times and it's very hard to imagine that not so long ago people actually lived like that. I also have to admire Orwell's dedication and determination, talking about really putting yourself in the thick of it! This is how proper writing is created!

There was a problem loading the comments at the moment. Please try again later.

This was written and published before Orwell became famous for AnimalFarm and 1984. I think it makes excellent background reading, showing the hands-on experience on which the more famous works were based.

There was a problem loading the comments at the moment. Please try again later.

This book is Orwell's autobiographical account of life in the Paris slums and amongst London tramps. Do not expect a happy story or happy endings for most of the characters - it will though, give you quite an insight of how poverty works and why it is so hard to shake it, once one falls on hard times.

The book starts with the Paris section and at a time just before the author falls on hard times. While it sounded dire to start off with, the transition in some way makes it much worse very rapidly and soon thereafter while not out for good, the author finds himself in a situation that seems practically impossible to climb out of. The description of the situation and the challenges associated with poverty are some of the most eloquent statements for more tolerance towards the less fortunate in our society.

The London bit points to some differences with Paris (harder to starve but conditions worse otherwise) but presents the same grim picture. There are a couple of chapters in the book, where Orwell tries to make sense out of why these conditions persist and why so little is don to end them. Some readers might find these very communist and be put off by them, on the other hand, Orwell does get some things right - namely the complete lack of understanding of people who have never been poor of what poverty really is like and how difficult it is to climb out of it once one finds oneself there (a message coming out much clearer from the chapters describing the situation than te summary ones analysing it).

This is most certainly not a feelgood book and unlike with the AnimalFarm: A Fairy Story or Nineteen Eighty-four there is no (black / hidden) humour to be found here. It is heartrending and at times depressing but it is a book worth reading and I would very much recommend it to people across the political spectrum.

There was a problem loading the comments at the moment. Please try again later.

Like another reviewer, I refuse to watch rubbish television with cheesey presenters and BBC's breaking news on celebrities and royals, I am reading a lot more books and in particular classics and in a book not a kindle )(even better).

I am not really interested in AnimalFarm which we are supposed to rave about but I love the observations and writing style of Orwell. I enjoy reading about the characters and my favourite character is Bozo. I enjoy his philosophy, and being poor myself I like the idea of the sky being a 'free show'. Also lots of tramps are 'bright' and have something to say.

As an update to his hotel story, working in the hotel industry itself, it can still very very bad in small hotels. We can work 60 hours a week, with limited staff and only last week I was asked to work 48 hours a week in Kent below minimum wage which could face the hotel with prosecution. ALso guests want us to go the extra mile, for example, so they can check in before 2pm, or they ask us to leave luggage or leave their wine in our fridge or do other special things ... and you know what, they give us NO TIP. Housekeepers have to clear up filthy rooms from couples after wedding parties or for clearing up after drunk businessmen, and still no tip! There is a high turnover in hotels due to terrible wages, hardly any tips, and employers bullying staff, particularly if they stand up for their rights. Right now in my hotel, about 4 people are leaving and they were so keen at the beginning when they first got the jobs. I would leave too, but it is so hard to find jobs now.earing up after drunk businessmen, and still no tip!

I used to work in an ex workhouse and it was interesting to see what they were like in Orwell's time. We used to have ghosts in the office and we think it was something to do with a death at the poorhouse.

There was a problem loading the comments at the moment. Please try again later.

For me, it doesn't really matter if Orwell experienced exactly these situations precisely as he account for them in this short memoir. These were real experiences that many people DID go through, and it shouldn't matter if a soon-to-be-famous writer embellished or exaggerated.

The book gives us an account of Orwell's time, before gaining employment as a writer, in the two cities of the title, at times penniless and with an empty stomach.

It is eminently readable, though for some reason I've always delayed picking it up. This I read as an audiobook and managed it in a couple of sessions. I found myself caught up in his predicaments, and shocked at how many people managed to live day-to-day, hand-to-mouth.

The restaurant work Orwell describes in detail is also shocking, the hours, the work, the conditions. How much has changed.

It makes one wonder how Orwell's experiences many have coloured his later work in 1984 and AnimalFarm that I am familiar with, if he was indeed on good terms with poor living and being at the bottom of the pile and powerless.

There was a problem loading the comments at the moment. Please try again later.

For me, it doesn't really matter if Orwell experienced exactly these situations precisely as he account for them in this short memoir. These were real experiences that many people DID go through, and it shouldn't matter if a soon-to-be-famous writer embellished or exaggerated.

The book gives us an account of Orwell's time, before gaining employment as a writer, in the two cities of the title, at times penniless and with an empty stomach.

It is eminently readable, though for some reason I've always delayed picking it up. This I read as an audiobook and managed it in a couple of sessions. I found myself caught up in his predicaments, and shocked at how many people managed to live day-to-day, hand-to-mouth.

The restaurant work Orwell describes in detail is also shocking, the hours, the work, the conditions. How much has changed.

It makes one wonder how Orwell's experiences many have coloured his later work in 1984 and AnimalFarm that I am familiar with, if he was indeed on good terms with poor living and being at the bottom of the pile and powerless.

There was a problem loading the comments at the moment. Please try again later.

Barbara Ehrenreich wrote the subject titled classic, with the subtitle of "Not getting by in America." For a year, she attempted to join the subclass of working Americans, mainly women, who are the waitresses and maids that are barely scratching out an existence in America. She admitted though, that she truly did not join the class, maintaining, for example, health insurance in case the need arose; something the subclass did not have as a backup. George Orwell, of 1984,AnimalFarm: The Illustrated Edition (Penguin Modern Classics),Burmese Days (Penguin Modern Classics) fame, as well as others, truly was in the ranks of an even lower class, who would routinely go without food for periods of time, living on the very fringes of society, in the early 1930's. He never mentions the phrase "The Great Depression." It was simply the life of the time. He provides a graphic, realistic portrait of that existence, without any backup "safety nets."

The first half relates his time in Paris. He links up with Russian exiles, like Boris, who were obviously on the "White" side in the Russian civil war, which followed the Revolution. Orwell must pawn most of his clothes, as well as all other items of any value, always hoping to score some sort of menial job. Boris and he do succeed in becoming "plongeurs" (literally dishwashers, but also including all the other lowly duties of a "bus boy.") It is a scathing portrait of life in the cellars of the "grand" hotels, and should make anyone who plunks down the big francs to stay there take pause at the descriptions of the filth out of which those fancy meals arrive at their tables. It is a life of constant work, 18 or so hours a day. The hotel staff is extremely hierarchical, with rituals and demarcations that define one's "level." Orwell also describes their "recreation," the getting drunk on Saturday nights. Without any economic clot, they are the "prey" of virtually all others, being cheated this way and that, in the fashion of the "Pay Day" loan sharks of today.

The author provides an excellent final chapter on his Parisian section which compares the "plongeurs" life with slavery. A couple incisive observations: "Essentially, a `smart' hotel is a place where a hundred people toil like devils in order that two hundred may pay through the nose for things they do not really want. If the nonsense were cut out of hotels and restaurants, and the work done with simple efficiency, "plongeurs" might work six to eight hours a day instead of ten or fifteen." And: "I believe that this instinct to perpetuate useless work is, at bottom, simply fear of the mob."

Orwell decides to go back to England, and obtains a "patient caregiver" job... but it turns out it is 30 days in the future. He must survive that month, and adopts the life of a "tramp," moving from "spike" to "spike" which are homeless shelters, each with its unique rules and "character," but generally only offering one night accommodation, which cannot be repeated... thus, enforcing constant movement on the destitute class, hence "tramp." Many tramps are scouring the pavements for cigarette butts, and subsist on a diet of bread and margarine. Tens of thousands are in constant movement. Orwell provides sketches of a few fellow tramps, who are all men, and without any "prospects" for female companionship.

As he did with his Paris section, he provides an objective, analytical summation of the overall meaning of having such a class of people in society, and how they are regulated. The most haunting assessment, after reading two hundred pages on the life of the down and out, is: "At present I do not feel I have seen more than the fringe of poverty." For those summation sections, Orwell deserves a "plus" onto the 5-stars.

There was a problem loading the comments at the moment. Please try again later.

Throughout 2012 I've been working my way through George Orwell's books, before coming to 'Down and Out in Paris and London' I've read 'Burmese Days', 'The Clergyman's Daughter', 'Coming Up For Air', 'Keep The Aspidistra Flying', and 'The Road To Wigan Pier'. In years gone by I've also read 'Nineteen Eighty-Four', 'AnimalFarm' and 'Homage to Catalonia'. I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that he's one of my favourite writers. In his essay Politics and the English Language (1946), Orwell wrote about the importance of precise and clear language, and provides six rules for writers:

* Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.* Never use a long word where a short one will do.* If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.* Never use the passive where you can use the active.* Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.* Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

These rules inform his simple, economic and powerful style.

'Down and Out in Paris and London' was his first book and demonstrates how good he was from the word go. The book is a fictionalised memoir based on his experiences in the late 1920s as a tramp in and around London, and as a catering worker in the restaurants and hotels of Paris. Poverty informs many of his books, and he brilliantly evokes the lives of those people who, unlike Orwell, cannot escape. As with 'The Road To Wigan Pier' he also takes the opportunity to comment on his experiences and his conclusions of spending time with the people he has met.

His experiences in both cities are fascinating. The book contains social history, humour, insights, compassion and some wonderful anecdotes. Orwell also manages to bring those he meets to life - and what a motley bunch they are. People of different nationalities, varying temperaments, and diverse personalities. It's hard not to view homeless people in a very different way after reading this book, and whilst a lot has changed since the late 1920s, there is also much that is depressingly familiar.

If you're new to Orwell and you are tempted to read some of his books then I'd recommend you tackle them in the order they were published:

Down and Out in Paris and LondonBurmese DaysA Clergyman's DaughterKeep the Aspidistra FlyingThe Road to Wigan PierHomage to CataloniaComing Up for AirAnimalFarmNineteen Eighty-Four

They are all good and well worth reading. My personal favourites are Burmese Days and Coming Up for Air.